# Mead: The Sweet Medicine of Heaven.



## psygardelic (May 24, 2005)

The following, besides my note at the end, is from Plants of Love by Christian Ratsch.

_"The Descending God of the mayan Indians brought honey and mead to Earth. The Mayan cosmos was born in inebriation.

Ah Muzen Cab, the "honey collector," was the Mayan God of Bees, whom the books of the Jaguar Priest say created the world. In Mayan, the same word is used for the world and for honey. The God of Bees was also the protector of the honey of the stingless bees and the mead it was made into (Balche).

Making mead is a very simple procedure. Honey is dissolved in fresh water and allowed to ferment. This usually begins after just a few hours and, depending upon the mixture, quickly ends. Sometimes, other ingredients were added to the germenting brew. Often, these were hallucinogenic nightshades, which helped the mead attain a special potency. In America, the Maya Indians brwed their mead using the bark of an inebriating tree (Lonchocarpus violaceus) or the they placed a toad (Bufo marinus) in the drink. This animal's venom contains dimethyltryptamine, which added a psychedelic component to the inebriation. (PSYGARDELICS SIDE NOTE: The actual species of toad that is utilized as a hallucinogen is Bufo alvarius NOT bufo marinus which is known to contain psychoactive tryptamines, specifically bufotenine, but contains more toxins than the B. Alvarius which primarily has 5-methoxy-dimethyltryptamine as the principal component. I should also note that DMT is NOT active orally and that the act of utilizing the toad itself as a hallucinogen is complete non-sense as the venom is usually extrapolated from the toad by using a "milking" process by gently squezing the glands on the toads back which then shoots a stream of venom out and looks a lot like the toad is ejaculating out of its back.. the venom is collected on a dish, allowed to dry, scraped up and vaporized in a glass free base pipe.)"_

I was going to type more information up from the book that I find interesting but I thought that I should just get to the point instead. I had the oppurtunity to try mead for the first time on my birthday. I purchased a small bottle of Pirtle Missouri Mead from berbiglia (sp?). It was straight mead "a light wine made from honey" and it was the most PURE, DIVINE, AMAZING drink that I have EVER tasted in my entire life!!

Pure was the one word that kept popping into my mind.. I can't even begin to describe how much I loved this drink.. I would have never guessed that there was something that tasted so great. It didn't taste like a wine, it didn't taste like ANYTHING that i've ever had before!! Unfortunately its kind of expensive stuff. A small bottle, it doesn't say how many ml but its half the size of a wine bottle, was $8.00 . Yesterday I was craving mead so bad so I went back up to birbiglia and bought a regular sized bottle of a different kind that was flavored with raspberry. They only have three different types there. The regular mead, mead flavored with raspberry, then mead that was only like %4 honey and %96 raspberry.. The mead I bought yesterday was %4 raspberry %96 honey. It tasted more like wine than mead. It was good, it just wasn't as good as the pure mead.. that bottle was $16.. I'm not rich enough to buy this stuff but if I could, I woudl drink it everyday for the rest of my life.

I LOVE MEAD.. I LOVE IT.. There is simply nothing more delicious and wonderful in this world than mead. Even the intoxication that it produces feels different to me. I understand that all booze is essentially ethanol / etoh .. but I find that different booze creates different intoxication.. And the inebriation induced by mead is the most "clean" and "clairvoyant" that I have ever experienced.

Mead is an ancient drink that I am very excited to do more research on. I hope that maybe others here will be inspired to look into it.

No doubt that others may find mead to not fit their desired taste but I hope that maybe someone out their will be able to share their thoughts about this drink with me.. I have minimal experience with libations as I am still rather young (just turned 22) but I have been waiting for a long time to find the right drink for me.. and mead is it!

 :al  good stuff.


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## TheSmokingHiker (Jan 11, 2005)

Hey man, if you like it that much, and it is too expensive for you, start brewing your own!!!


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## psygardelic (May 24, 2005)

Yeah! In fact I was just talking to my wife about that!! We have had experience brewing beer and making wine in the past, just in small batches but from scratch (not that crazy brewing kit you buy at walmart, anyone else see this goofy thing?)..

I may search the web to try and find some good mead recipes. I would like to you use psychoactive honey to brew the mead too. Jonathan Ott has a great article on psychoactive honey's and I'm sure www.erowid.org has some good articles on mead, so its time to resaarch! Thanks for that extra boost of motivation TSH!!

edit:
I was actually thinking about getting a job at the liquor store that sells it.. although i'm not sure if you get a discount for working there, I think it would be a fun job and that I would learn a lot about various libations.. reading all the threads here at CS has been motivation to further pursue my knowledge of wines and coffees and even foods.. which is something that I would have never found interesting if it were not for the passion of some here.


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## Hammerhead (Sep 7, 2005)

Great post! You got my attention. I've never tried Mead, but most gorillas here have tried wines, liquors, cognacs, distilled and fermented spirits and drinks of all kinds. I've never thought to give that a try. You've inspired me to give it a shot.


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## opus (Jun 21, 2005)

Where can I buy mead online?


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## rumballs (Mar 15, 2005)

meh.
i made some once and it was just too sweet.
guess i should try some that someone else made - i may have just screwed it up...


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## altbier (Feb 20, 2005)

I started beekeeping to have honey to make mead. I also use a lot of honey in the beers I make.
Mead is pretty simple to make, but it tastes better after at least two years of aging.
Look into joining a local homebrew club or local wine making club, most of the people who have been brewing for a few years have made mead and can point you in the right direction.
if yuou need some honey, PM me and I'll look up the source where you can buy honey for $70 for a 5 gallon pale.


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## altbier (Feb 20, 2005)

mmblz said:


> meh.
> i made some once and it was just too sweet.
> guess i should try some that someone else made - i may have just screwed it up...


Your yeast may have died out before it was done. Yeasts with higher attenuation produce higher alcoholic meads that taste dryer

cheers!


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## TTgirl (Sep 8, 2005)

Interesting... I'd never heard of this.

Thanks for the toad clarification, too.


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## DrStrangelove (Jun 8, 2005)

psygardelic said:


> I understand that all booze is essentially ethanol / etoh .. but I find that different booze creates different intoxication..


Hell yes, that's why i stay away from mixed drinks. I've had my day with long island ice teas (the worst 'little bit of every drunk you can imagine' mixed drinks),and other mixed drinks and the entire concept has soured.

The best expieriences I've had with mead is when it is served warm, heated in a large cauldron to about the temperacture you would serve apple cider (hot but not scalding).

Mead indeed... Mead indeed.


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## psygardelic (May 24, 2005)

I'm glad to find someone who agrees! Those syrupy liquors can produce a nasty hangover! nonetheless I dont think I could give up my SoCo and OJ which I do enjoy on occasion. my wife drinks the stuff straight, I couldn't imagine that let alone how intense the higher proof SoCo is.

My mouth is watering after reading about the warm mead! What an awesome experience. The place that makes the mead, Pirtle is in my home state, Missouri. maybe I'll take a trip there someday and get some mead straight from the tap!

If you read my cigar review for the Oliva Master Blend you'll see that I bought a small bottle of mead yesterday with some spare change. $9 for about 2 glassfulls.. but it was worth every penny. I've been thinking a lot lately about making my own. I have beer brewing and wine making supplies from my past ventures. I wonder how involved the process is.. I'll have to do some research.


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## Ramrod (Sep 21, 2005)

altbier said:


> Your yeast may have died out before it was done. Yeasts with higher attenuation produce higher alcoholic meads that taste dryer
> 
> cheers!


This is my experience as well. Truthfully, I find it hard to make a quality sweet mead.

My biggest problem is good honey sources. Nothing in the world adds honey flavor like honey from Buckwheat fields (IMO).

Ramrod


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## Jsabbi01 (Feb 24, 2005)

me = poor underage college student who cant drink (legally)

my favorite drink is:

glass, with 2 ice cubes
fill with bankers club vodka
drop in a shot of Soco

Drink and repeat.

its really not even that bad...the Soco cuts the rubbing alcohol taste of the Bankers vodka really well.


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## DrStrangelove (Jun 8, 2005)

Jsabbi01 said:


> me = poor underage college student who cant drink (legally)
> 
> my favorite drink is:
> 
> ...


   And a drop of honey for that mead flavor??


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## psygardelic (May 24, 2005)

*Need Help Sharing Pictures of Mead recipes! Please Help.*

Okay, So I was going to simply type it all up but there is simply TOO much information!! First of all I want to take this time to recommend to everyone who is interested in learning about the history of libations and sacred herbs that you purchase the book "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers" by Stephen Harrod Buhner!! this book is freaking amazing! I bought it a long time ago when I made some interesting wine fortified with some stuff I can't say on a public forum. This book is setup like one of the greatest books in the world, Pharmako/poeia by Dale Pendell.

The book is very poetic and highly informative!! Go out and buy it today!!!! Its awesome!!

Anyways, I scanned the passages from the book about mead. I'm not sure if I am allowed to post scanned pages from a book or not but i really want to share this information with you guys. The problem is, there are about 20 pages or so.. I want to post them on some free picture hosting website and link the pictures to a new post here.. I dont know how to scan pages and convert it into text... That would be more effective.

Can anyone suggest a particular website for hosting pictures or let me know if I am allowed to post pictures of book pages? I respect the author a lot and wouldn't want to do this if it is copyright infringement or something.. I'm not sure how all that works but for those of you who thirst for knowledge, you gotta check out this book.

The truth is , I have a very extensive library on botany, ethnobotany, pharmacology, organic chemistry, alchemy, illicit pharmacology, mythology and history. Some of my favorite authors are Jonathan Ott, Richard Evans Schultes, Dale Pendell, Christian Ratsch, and Terrence Mckenna.. I love books and I love reading!! I have about 5 books on Beer and Wine making, 5 books on bar tending, and about 14 books on Cigars and tobacco too.. Those quantities are small compared to the quantity of books in topics mentioned above... (Not sure why I shared this information but maybe someone else out there will want to share or swap some book recommendations with me?)

Anyways, please let me know about the above question. Thank you.


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## NCatron (Sep 7, 2005)

Ah, copyright law. The bane of an internet user's existance.

To use the always-fun acronym IANAL (I am not a lawyer), but any time you take a copyrighted work and post it where millions of people could potentially access it, it's probably a no-no. Normally you have the right to reproduce single pages of works, such as copying pages at the library, etc. But as soon as you start to enable others to easily access it, it gets hairy.

That said, no one really cares, and the internet is such a deep pit that it'll never be noticed.  

If you want to be safe, let people PM you and then you can email them a copy, or mail them a hard copy. That way you control who has access, and it won't turn into "mass piracy". But like I said, there is so much piracy of major proportions going on, this is a micro-drop in the bucket.


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## psygardelic (May 24, 2005)

That sounds fine with me! My main concern is with respecting the author not the law. I still totally recommend this book wholeheartedly (no clue how to spell that phrase).. 

I appreciate your answer as that was exactly what I was wondering. 

If anyone is interested in purchasing this book and wants to know about some of the passages in it to see if its something that you want to blow the money on (and its pretty affordable, check amazon) then PM me and maybe I could send you an example paragraph from the book..

hows that?


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## psygardelic (May 24, 2005)

Although I wanted to start a new thread to share this link I am simply going to post it here and will likely simply continue to share my information and passion for mead in this one single thread.

This article is by the biggest scientist role model for me ever.. I own several of his books and he has inspired me to work on a compilation of my own essays which I have been laboring at off and on for about 5 years now.. Jonathan Ott. There are several of his books that I am just dieing to get my hands on but they are so hard to find and many out of print.. Mine and My wifes favorite book by Jonathan Ott is Pharmacotheon which has a very inspirational and moving passage in the beginning.

Anyways, I am sharing this: http://leda.lycaeum.org/?ID=16834 article with you called The Delphic Bee: Bees and toxic honeys as pointers to psychoactive and other medicinal plants because it goes hand in hand with mead.. especially because many of the traditional methods of making mead and even beer do happen to involve using highly psychotropic and very potent phytopharmacologically active botanicals.. from henbane to clary sage the list goes on and i've been trying to learn more about it.. My interesting wine I made has some rather fun botanicals extracts in it that I had made including some that possess the powers of love, known as aporphine (aka apomorphine) which is possessed by nypmeae and nelumbo species. Anyways, The use of honeys made from psychoactive plants to make strongly inebriating meads goes far back into the roots of human history and some believe it to be one of the very things to inspire creativity and allow humans to evolve into formulating language, communication, and art. People have been intoxicated and poisoned by honeys many times.. Honeys from certain plants can be HIGHLY poisonous.. I always see bees feeding from the long trumpet shaped flowers of the devils weed that grows so abundantly on our small plot of gardening land..

Anyways, just wanted to share that link..


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